1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer network system in which a plurality of computers is connected, and specifically relates to a computer system which is effective for a case that a plurality of vendors' products is used as units which are connected to a computer network.
2. Related Background Art
With the high advancement of information processing by a computer, construction of a total computer system in which computer subsystems are distributed regionally and spatially and connected into a network has been developing. To manage a distributed processing system with the network connection, it is preferred that a management/maintenance center be established in order to save human resources and to reduce the time from the occurrence of a fault to the restoration of the fault. In this center, detection of a fault analysis of a fault state, and an instruction to restore are executed as the centralized management process.
As such a management process, the following two stages are considered.
(1) Management of network resources which connect each subsystem.
(2) Management of resources which each subsystem uses on operations, including hardware resources and software resources except network resources.
Regarding to the "centralized management of network resources" of the aforesaid (1), each computer vendor releases products corresponding with an individual network architecture, to achieve the following functions
(a) Network configuration control PA1 (b) Network fault control PA1 (c) Network performance control PA1 (d) Network secrecy control
These various controls can be achieved based on the fact that protocol on the network is mounted in each subsystem in accordance with the industry standards or the international standards.
However, the present state of centralized "management of the operational resources" of (2) is groping for its achievement. This is because each computer which manages subsystems individually is provided by a different vendor. Each vendor therefore has to be taken into consideration by the centralized management process. The architecture which each computer vendor employs is constructed according to each company's strategies so that it shows the greatest effects in a target market that may be paticular to each vendor.
The hardware and a basic software which each vendor provides are designed/manufactured and released to the market. Accordingly, a management method for the operational resources, executed by the computer that controls each subsystem may differ for ordinary cases of system construction.
On the other hand, the operational resources which each subsystem uses are managed by a host computer installed in the subsystem, and the management information exists in the host computer and is displayed on a console unit of the host computer. It is possible that the displayed information is notified to a management/maintenance center which is far from each subsystem by using, for example, "Method of Automatic Fault Notifying" disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-116842 (116842/1989), and is displayed on a display unit installed in the management/maintenance center. In a case of employing this method, the management information of each subsystem displayed in the management/maintenance center has a format peculiar to a subsystem which is a transmitting source, and a management/maintenance person processes the management information by an information analysis method which differs for each subsystem.